Sherwood 2015

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Kinetic Alfven wave turbulence in intermediate beta plasmas

Author: R. P. Sharma
Requested Type: Consider for Invited
Submitted: 2015-01-23 01:25:44

Co-authors:

Contact Info:
Indian institute of Technology, delhi
Hauz Khas
New delhi, Delhi   110016
India

Abstract Text:
Waves and instabilities play a very crucial role in laboratory plasmas as well as in astrophysical plasmas e.g. solar wind, Geospace etc. The main objective of current study is to investigate the importance of nonlinear processes associated with kinetic Alfven waves (KAWs) in order to understand the physical mechanism behind the several observed phenomena in intermediate beta regions. To fulfill this objective, a coupled set of nonlinear dynamical equations has been derived by taking nonlinear ponderomotive force associated with KAW into account. Small amplitude density perturbations present in the medium causes amplification in the pump wave amplitude. When wave amplitude becomes sufficiently high, the ponderomotive force of these waves becomes large enough and filamentation instability takes place and localized field structures are formed. The proposed study also aims to study the nonlinear evolution of KAWs and see its effect on several processes occurring in intermediate beta plasmas e.g. turbulence, particle energization etc. Our results reveal Kolmogorov scaling followed by steeper scaling of power spectra. Relevance of present investigation for recent spacecraft observations has been discussed.

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March 16-18, 2015
The Courant Institute, New York University